a fabulous kind of serpent, said to kill by its breath or sight only. Galen says, that it is of a colour inclining to yellow; and that it has three little eminences upon its head, speckled with whitish spots, which have the appearance of a fort of crown. Aelian says, that its poison is so penetrating, as to kill the largest serpents with its vapour only; and that if it but bite the end of any man's stick, it kills him. It drives away all other serpents by the noise of its hissing. Pliny says, it kills those who look upon it.—The generation of the basilisk is not less marvellous, being said to be produced from a cock's egg, brooded on by a serpent. These, and other things equally ridiculous, are related by Matthiolus, Galen, Dioscorides, Pliny, and Erastratus. Hirchmayer and Vander Wiel have given the history of the basilisk, and detected the folly and imposture of the traditions concerning it.—In some apothecaries shops there are little dead serpents shown, which are said to be basilisks. But these seem rather to be a kind of small bird, almost like a cock, but without feathers: its head is lofty, its wings are almost like a bat's, its eyes large, and its neck is very short. As to those which are shown and sold at Venice, and in other places, they are nothing but little thornbacks artificially put into a form like that of a young cock, by stretching out their fins, and contriving them with a little head and hollow eyes; and this, Calmet says, he has in reality observed in a supposed basilisk, at an apothecary's shop at Paris, and in another at the Jesuits of Pont-a-Mousson.

military affairs, a large piece of ordnance, thus denominated from its resemblance to the supposed serpent of that name. The basilisk throws an iron ball of 200 pounds weight. It was much talked of in the time of Solyman emperor of the Turks, in the wars of Hungary; but seems now out of use. Paulus Jovius relates the terrible slaughter made by a single ball from one of these basilisks in a Spanish ship; after penetrating the boards and planks in the ship's head, it killed above 30 men. Maffeus speaks of basilisks made of brafs, which were drawn each by 100 yoke of oxen.—Modern writers also give the name basilisk to a much smaller and fixable piece of ordnance, which the Dutch make 15 feet long, and the French only 10. It carries 48 pounds.